Monday, April 9, 2012

Game of the week 14: Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney

Now is the time once again for the game of the week blog, and
in our text book, I took the initiative of looking at one of the topics, which
was puzzles. The definition of
puzzles was broader however, and compared and contrasted how puzzles relate to
how games should be made. Puzzles need not only refer to things such as Sudoku
or Crossworld puzzles, but many a game of course have puzzles. Puzzles come in
all shapes and sizes, having different effects on gameplay. Some can feature
puzzles as a mandatory to the gameplay, such as in Legend of Zelda games, where
puzzles are mandatory in most dungeons but they are usually simple enough so
that young players can still progress and have fun doing them. Others feature
mind bending puzzles as the main form of gameplay the whole way through, I
would probably compare this to Catherine (my previous game of the week) as the
main game play is the fast paced, difficult puzzles. There are certain features
that puzzles should contain to keep them accessible and a fun part of the
gameplay but I will get into those later, for now I’d like to introduce the
game of the week, or rather series of the week.

This week, I’ve decided to feature a series originally
created for the Game Boy Advanced and later ported to the Nintendo DS. The
series in question is Phoenix Wright Ace
Attorney. The main series on the GBA features three games, the original, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney : Justice for
All and Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney
: Trials and Tribulations. The first game was originally released in 2001,
and the remake for the Nintendo DS in 2005, with the sequels following in 2002
and 2004 on GBA and then 2006 and 2007 for DS.

The game features the main character, Phoenix Wright
defending his clients in a variety of legal cases, though pretty much all of
them relating to murder in some fashion. With his assistant Maya, he goes about
collecting evidence, talking with various witnesses and finally going to court
room. There he cross examines witnesses and their testimony in order to find
facts that will prove his client’s innocence. The game is essentially a take on
turning the legal system into gameplay.

Gameplay

There are two different sections of gameplay typically in
the game, there is the investigation section
and the courtroom section.

Investigation sections, where all the exploration is

In the investigation section, you go out into the scene of
the crime and any related areas to gather evidence. You get to collect pieces
of evidence that are added to your inventory for future reference, as well as
other characters around who may provide more information, including evidence
and such. Over the course of the game, you are given various tools that help
you search rooms for evidence. This evidence will eventually be used in the
courtroom, as that is the main section where all the drama and revelations in
the game occur.

The courtroom sections, where all the action happens

In the courtroom section of the game, the collected evidence
and knowledge that you obtained over the course of the investigation section is
what you are armed with in the court room sessions. Much of it consists of
listening to Witness testimony, pointing out any contradictions you can based
on the evidence you possess. You’ll have to do some “puzzle solving” by doing
some logical thinking and seeing where they are wrong. That’s essentially the
main aspect of this entire section, pointing out where the logic is wrong and
shoving it in their face. Of course there are consequences for not pointing out
the logic correctly, so you have a “life bar” of sorts that depletes. If you
lose all of it you have to restart the court room sequence.

Cross Examination sequences are where you do all of logical thinking to break down the witness' testimony

Now the thing about this game is that it is fact, a very
linear game. Most of the game actually consists of text to read, which in fact
makes it like a “Visual Novel”. These games usually consist of a lot of text,
or dialogue, and they are mostly story in fact. This genre of games mixes with
the “Dating Sim” type that I spoke of earlier in my blog regarding Catherine.
Anyways, in Phoenix Wright, there is one set path usually. Only on the rare
occasion can you get different endings. In the investigation sequences, you
will ALWAYS get all the evidence you need before you can proceed to the court
room sequences. And in the court room sequences, you will ALWAYS have all the
evidence you need to proceed. If you don’t then it’s scripted for you to not
have that evidence at the time and things will proceed as normal.

Now the fact that I mention it’s a linear, visual novel game
now means what really makes this a game? Well like I mentioned earlier, the
“puzzle solving” in the court rooms is where the game play truly lies. You have
to use your brain quite a bit to decipher the clues given to you. This also
applies in the investigation sections, most of the time you should think about
where you want to go next, what areas to visit, who you want to question and
doubt.

Game Design of the
Week: Puzzles

In our breakdown of puzzles, we identified a variety of
different puzzles types, which included, riddles,
lateral thinking, spatial reasoning, pattern recognition, logic, exploration
and item use. In Phoenix Wright, the main puzzle types used in the game are
logic, exploration and item use.

Logic is used
constantly in the court room sections, like I said you have to break down
everything the witness on the stand is saying and point out any contradiction,
no matter how tiny.

Exploration is
used in the investigation sequences, since you have to explore every nook and
cranny of every location available to you in order to find ll the evidence you
can.

Item use is also
used quite a bit all over, a combination of using your logical thinking, presenting the correct items at the correct times
so that you can either reveal more information, or take down a witness’
testimony. Of course items are
obtained through exploration as
well!

You'll be using those 4 puzzle types all over the game

Puzzle basics

There are also four basic characteristics to puzzles. Affordances, identifiable patterns, ease of
use and reward player skill.

Affordance means
it should be easy to figure out the rules and controls. In Phoenix Wright, well
you don’t really have too many crazy options in terms of controls and rules. It
really makes the game easy to play and pick up for anyone, all you have to do
is use logic.

Identifiable patterns
means the puzzle should be clear so that players are able to identify the
ways the puzzle can be solved. Well in PW (Phoenix Wright), you are given all
the evidence you need and as long as you paid attention to the information you
were given during the game, you should be able to figure out how to proceed
with the case. (You can still look back on information you gathered too)

Ease of Use meaning
good interface (User interface). Like I said, PW features not too many controls
or rules to go by and the user interface is pretty simple. In courtroom for
example, when cross examining, read the witness statement, press him for more
information, present evidence to show a contradiction or move to the next
statement. Simple as that.

Reward Player skill is
so obvious, not gonna say that it does! And well PW helps you thinking
logically throughout, or at least logical for PW standards, so it holds your
hand that way.

Phoenix right is able to use the basic rules of puzzles quite well

Puzzles in Phoenix
Wright?

At first when I played the game, I hadn’t thought about it
as a puzzle game. I usually associated puzzles with crosswords and such. I
forgot to think about using logic and deductive reasoning as puzzles, since
you’re really trying to solve something based on the tools and information
provided. Puzzles like cross words of course make you use your brain to think
about what words will go, but of course that uses logic and deductive reasoning
too. For some reason I hadn’t made the connection, I thought of PW more as a
visual novel then a puzzle game. But now I can see it’s a good part puzzle game
as well, using all that logical thinking to break down witnesses.

Conclusion

The main reason I feel satisfaction from doing this though
is because the game’s characters and script throughout the game are fantastic.
Without this high quality from the script and great characters, I would not
have enjoyed the game nearly as much. They made the game what it is. I played
the game for the story mostly but still felt satisfaction from breaking down
witnesses and such. That’s how the
puzzles are rewarding and that’s another lesson we learned in class. Puzzles should be rewarding, providing
the player with some sort of benefit and for the players of this game, the
benefit was to see the storyline continue. The story in most of the cases were
all fun to go through and most of the character’s you cross examined in their
testimony had neat reactions (Such as pulling their hair out, but more
interesting than simply that) that made it even more satisfying.

Anyways that’s all I wanted to cover this week. If you have
never tried Phoenix Wright before, I suggest you do. It’s a fantastic series
and a lot of fun to play. I loved it simply for the characters and story and
the puzzle aspect of it made me more engaged in the storyline all together!